Ever After
by EstrangeloEdessa
Summary: Sabrina's an Everafter now, and that means nothing can be the same. She can never be normal, she can never lead the normal life she always wanted, and she can't even fall in love with the nice normal person she wants. And this will last... forever. Three-shot picking up from scenes of the last book. Written because of my dissatisfaction with the series' ending.


_The children sat on the dock for a long time, looking out at the rolling waves as they moved on to the sea.  
__"Wait, if we're Everafters now, does that mean we're going to live forever?" Daphne exclaimed.  
__Puck eyed Sabrina. She could almost see his mind working on the millions of pranks he would subject her to now that he had all the time in the world. She felt sick to her stomach when he giggled mischievously.  
__"Shenanigans," he said._

* * *

Sabrina tried to smile back, but it was suddenly very hard. Sure, it was all well and good to say something like "shenanigans," but really, this whole thing was a lot more serious than that. Because she, Sabrina Grimm, was now an Everafter. An Everafter. Her. Nice normal human Sabrina Grimm was now a magical creature that was going to live for ever. What did that even mean, forever? It was a million lifetimes plus one, and that would only be the beginning.

She stood up. Puck, Daphne, and Red looked at her curiously, but she ignored them. She needed a minute or two by herself, to think, and this pier suddenly seemed far too close to the center of the town. Everafters were crawling all over the place here, dazed with the wonder of being set free. No, she needed somewhere quite different.

There was one little spot in the wood she knew of, and that was where she went. It was a calm little clearing, just inside the barrier. Or where the barrier used to be, anyway. It seemed somehow different when she got there, like something had been taken away. But that was ridiculous. She was just overtaxing her imagination, which was already quite weak from the weight of that idea of _forever_.

Sabrina leaned against a tree and tried to find a way to wrap her mind around it. Nothing came to mind. It was simply too enormous of a concept to handle, like some big giant field that she was trying to fold up into her hand. Forever. For ever after. Funny, how that had become no more than a name to her these last few months...

A sudden loud crunching interrupted her thoughts. Sabrina jumped forward, hands raised, memories of giants and Grendel and the Big Bad Wolf already running through her panicked mind. After a few seconds, though, she realized that the source of that sound was actually much worse than that. Even after nearly four thousand years of living out of doors, Puck had never bothered to learn how to tread quietly.

He came through a couple of trees, spotted her, and grinned. "What are you doing way out here?"

"Leave me alone, stinkface," said Sabrina.

"Well, that isn't very nice."

"I'm serious. Go away."

"What? What did I do now?"

"Nothing. I just want to be by myself right now, all right?"

"If this is about that time when I - "

"Not everything is about you, okay?" He was still not showing any sign of leaving, so Sabrina turned her back on him and started walking farther into the woods, parallel to the barrier. "I just need to be by myself to think for a little while."

"Think about what?" He was following her.

"Stuff."

"What stuff?"

"What do you think, stupid? The whole Everafter thing, that's what stuff."

"Oh, that," he scoffed, as if it was absolutely nothing to worry about. "I thought it might be something important."

"In which case I still don't need you bothering me." A branch snapped back from Sabrina's hand and hit her arm. She rubbed it and winced. "So seriously, leave me alone."

"Come on, Grimm." Puck paused, teetering on top of a fallen log. "Would you just tell me what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"So how come you're so upset?"

"I'm not upset, I'm just... confused." Sabrina sighed, then turned around to face him. "Things look way more complicated now."

"Complicated? What, because you're an Everafter?"

Sabrina nodded, even though she wasn't quite sure herself.

"I never thought being an Everafter was that complicated. I mean, you eat, you sleep, you avoid baths, you get to stay as young as you want..."

There was that immortality thing again. But that wasn't the problem, or at least not all of it. "You wouldn't get it, Puck."

"Try me."

"All right." Sabrina thought carefully, trying to find words that even the immature fairy boy could process. "I... was a human. Right? I was always the sane thing, the normal thing, and Everafters were... the other things." Puck still looked confused; he wasn't getting it. Sabrina tried harder. "I mean, first Everafters weren't real. Then they were the bad guys. Then they were the victims. And now they're me."

"Yeah, you're right," said Puck. "I don't get it."

"_Listen_," said Sabrina. "It's just that... I don't know what to think anymore."

"Look, Grimm." Puck jumped down from the log. "Everafters are exactly the same as they've always been. You don't need to think any different of them, or whatever - "

"No, it _isn't that_. Everafters are fine, I guess." Sabrina looked down at her hands. It was stupid to think that they looked different all of a sudden, but they did; in the weird forest light, they looked as if they could belong to any other creature. A human... or an imitation. "I don't know what to think... about... myself." Her voice dropped into a whisper. "I don't know how I'm going to deal with this."

"I can help you with that," said Puck.

Sabrina looked up, a little surprised that he was actually offering help, and then saw with even more surprise that he had one arm stretched out as if he was going to reach for her. He seemed to notice this at the exact same time, and stuffed the hand back into the pocket of his hoodie, looking suspiciously pink around the cheeks.

"I just mean, you know, since we're gonna be married and all that," he tried to add offhandedly.

"No." Sabrina shook her head. "You really need to stop joking about that."

"Aaw, c'mon. We both know - "

"No! We don't 'both know' anything! All right?" Sabrina clenched her fists, suddenly angry beyond all reason.

Now Puck was completely red. "It was just a joke!"

"Well I've got plenty of _serious_ things to worry about concerning the rest of my life, and so I don't care if it's all 'just a joke' to you! Find something else to joke about!"

"Fine!" yelled Puck. "Here's something else I can joke about! I can call you ugly and you can call me stupid and we can just go on and on like that. We can just go back to saying all the dumb things we said before - well - before we got things figured out!"

"What are you talking about? We never got anything 'figured out' - except maybe in your imagination, stupid."

"Yeah, maybe in my imagination, but I've got it figured out, all right!" Puck took an angry step forward. "Let me tell you something. You're whining and complaining about how hard things are now, or how you don't want to make this choice or something, but at least you _have_ a choice. At least you, if you make a mistake you can go back and fix it, but it was never like that for me!"

"Oh, what, does the poor old Trickster King have some big regret weighing on his mind now?"

"No he doesn't! And that, Sabrina, is because I've thought about everything going on about a million times and so I'm actually certain of what I'm doing. I know what I want. When I followed you back here from New York last winter, you think I did that just on a whim? I knew I was walking right back into the barrier! And when I started getting older -" His voice suddenly squeaked here, as if to emphasize the point. "- I know there's no going back!"

"Well, maybe it's all right for you to make stupid decisions like that, but I know better than to plan out _my_ entire life when I'm twelve. That isn't what I want!"

"What do you want, then, Grimm?"

"Normal!" Sabrina yelled. "That's all I've been trying to say - today, and ever since I came to this stupid town! All I want for my life is to get all this stupid weirdness out of it. I don't want to be an Everafter, I'm not even sure I want to _know_ any Everafters. All I ever wanted was to do nice little normal things, go to school and have normal friends, grow up and get a normal job, fall in love and get married in a nice, normal way. And that's why I don't need your stupid jokes, because honestly, things are already weird enough in my life without you buzzing around making them weirder, okay?"

"'Okay?' No! Would you look at yourself? What you've just done? You just lead an entire army of magical creatures to a victorious conclusion in an epic battle against a sadistic magic mirror bent on world domination - you have absolutely no chance of being normal ever again!"

"_I can try!_" Sabrina screamed, her voice shrill as she tried to block out the little voice inside of her saying that he was right; she wasn't normal, hadn't been for over a year, never would be again. "I can darn well try!"

"So is that what you're going to do, then?" said Puck. He scoffed. "It's never going to happen."

"Yes," said Sabrina. "That is exactly what I am going to do. And why not?"

"Chicken," he said quietly.

Sabrina had nothing to say to that. She knew it was just one of his last-ditch attempts to get the final word in. It wasn't going to work. She folded her arms, and glared at him.

Puck looked away. He stared down at the forest floor off to one side, as if there were something there far more interesting and important than Sabrina. He stared for a long time, so long that Sabrina was starting to get tired of her folded-arm position, but she felt like moving would just be giving in somehow. She kept glaring, although it was hard to keep up.

Finally he shifted. He put his hands in his pockets like he didn't know what else to do with them, and made a half-turn away, back towards the way he came. Then he kind of paused, and almost looked back up at Sabrina. But he couldn't seem to quite manage it, and kept staring at that one spot on the ground as he spoke.

"Fine," he said. "I was going to leave anyway."

"Really?"

"Not _everything_ I say has to be a joke, you know."

"I - I know." Sabrina unfolded her arms; now her hands felt awkward, dangling there, but she was suddenly very, very not angry anymore. "But I didn't think you're actually leaving -"

"Well, it sure doesn't sound like you want me around here."

"But Puck, I..."

"What?"

Sabrina didn't know what. But Puck was looking far more hurt than she had ever seen him before. "I... I didn't mean anything..." She shrugged desperately, searching for a word. "Upsetting."

"Did you even listen to anything you just said?"

Sabrina couldn't answer. Considering the stupid things she was coming up with, that was probably for the best. Hey eyes suddenly felt very wet, and she squeezed her eyelids together, willing herself not to start crying. When she opened them again, the forest seemed blurred for a second, but only a second.

Had she really meant everything she said? Yes, she realized, she had. All she had ever wanted - her whole life, practically - was to be normal. In the last few months, with everything that had been happening with the Scarlet Hand, she knew better than to try; lives had been at stake, and she couldn't ignore the magic in the town around her. But still, even through all that, she had somehow clung to the hope that someday, after it was all over, she would be able to go back to being normal old Sabrina again. She had never once considered that she might become an Everafter at the end of it all, and that was the thing that was confusing her now.

But that didn't mean she wanted to _hurt_ people, and especially not Puck. It was just that... well...

Actually, she had no excuse. And Puck knew it, too. She couldn't even make herself meet his eyes as he muttered, "I'm just gonna go now, then."

She blinked. There was something funny about his voice. "Are you crying?"

"_No_," said Puck.

"Yes you are!"

"I said I'm leaving now, bye."

"Hang on!" Sabrina rushed forward, but Puck was already turning away. He started hurrying back the way they had come, trying to go quickly over all the fallen branches in his way. When he got to the enormous fallen log he had jumped on before, he had to scramble up its side. Apparently he was crying too hard to even see straight, though, because he stepped on something that snapped under his feet and sent him flying back.

He caught on to a sapling, which at least kept him from falling down. He didn't move after that, just stood there as Sabrina caught up. His face looked strange, all red and kind of puffy. There were giant, fat tears working their way down his cheeks.

Sabrina let out a strangled half-laugh. "Don't do that," she tried to joke. "It's making ugly streaks in the dirt all over your face.

"Yeah, well," said Puck.

Sabrina hesitated. Then she pulled the long sleeve of her shirt down over her hand, and reached up to his face. He closed his eyes. Gently, she started to dry away the tears that were still glistening there. More kept forcing their way out from under his wet eyelashes, and she dried those off too. Soon edge of her sleeve was completely soaked through. She switched to the other one, still carefully wiping away

Finally his face seemed completely dry, and it seemed like he was done crying. Sabrina pulled her hand away. "There." She took a deep breath. "Is that better?"

Puck's eyes fluttered open. "Yeah."

"Okay."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"My nose is running, too."

"You can wipe _that_ off yourself."

Puck laughed, and did so, swiping the sleeve of his filthy green hoodie across his nose. Sabrina made a face.

"You know, your face was looking a lot cleaner before you did that."

"Thanks, Grimm."

"You're welcome."

"No, seriously, thanks. I guess... that makes the second time, right?"

It only took Sabrina a moment to see what he meant. It was the second time she had ever seen him cry - and the first time had been in New York, too, right before he had followed her back into the barrier. The thought made her insides twist with guilt. "Are you really going to leave?"

"No duh, Grimm. It's not like you're need me saving your life every five seconds anymore."

Sabrina laughed.

"And besides, this way you'll get a chance to try for a normal life."

How often was Puck actually so sincere? It was almost difficult to believe that it was really him standing here saying these things. But he was. And, Sabrina realized suddenly, he looked pretty cute doing it. Standing there with him, looking at his face dappled in the fading forest light, she was suddenly reminded of the last time she had been so close to him. It had been just after that wedding... and that reminded her of something else.

She cleared her throat nervously. "Puck..."

"Yeah?"

"I kinda wanted to ask you something... well, for something."

"What is it?"

"I mean, if you're really going to leave and all that..."

"Uh-huh..."

"And - you know, I really didn't want to hurt your feelings, with, well, what I said a few minutes ago, about us - "

"What did you want to ask me, Grimm?"

"Well -" Sabrina decided she'd been really stupid to bring this up, but there was no going back now. She took a deep breath and continued, her words all spilling out in a sudden rush. "It's just that, there was that time when you kissed me, in the middle of all those monkeys, or chimps or whatever, and then there was that time when I kissed you, 'cause you ate that stupid poison apple, but there wasn't ever a time when we actually kissed each other."

Puck stared at her. "So. Wait. You're asking me - "

"Yeah."

"You, Sabrina Grimm, actually want me to - "

"Um. Yeah. I guess."

For a couple more seconds, he just kept looking dumbfounded. Then he grinned, the old familiar smirk jumping right back onto his face the way it always did.

"I always knew you couldn't resist me," he gloated.

They kissed. And years later, Sabrina still remembered it as a good kiss, and the last real kiss she would get for a long time. All she could think about was how nice it felt. When it finally ended, she was grinning from ear to ear.

"Well," said Puck, "so much for your normal life."

"You know what?" Sabrina shrugged. "That can start tomorrow."


End file.
